Paul Adinolfi: A militia of armed school teachers is not the answer

Published 5:08 pm, Wednesday, January 9, 2013

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It should not be difficult to understand what the amendment meant, as long as you think of it in terms of what was happening at the time the amendment was written -- and not the present.

Having our citizens bear arms was a must if we wanted to defend ourselves against the British.

Our citizens will always have the right to bear arms and always will.

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But with regulations -- which every law abiding and sane citizen should want -- eliminating arms has NOT been the question!

Automobiles have a lot in common with guns -- they both kill thousands of people every year. The NRA, however, would probably say "automobiles don't kill people -- people kill people" similar to their theme song "Guns don't kill people -- people kill people."

But the real truth is automobiles with people kill people and guns with people kill people. It is not a question of either/or.

We probably have thousands of regulations and laws for automobile safety. This is what our citizens want.

If we can make a big effort for automobile safety, why aren't we doing that for gun safety?

Evidently the NRA leadership has its own ideas of gun safety.

Strangely, the NRA leadership wants us to live the way we did when the Second Amendment was written. The NRA president's answer is to have a militia of school teachers to bear arms in every school and to have armed security officers at the entrances, and to have militias of our citizens bearing arms in malls and theaters, and our streets.

If there are schools and states that believe it will work -- try it! -- and good luck.

But the NRA is not the only problem for having better gun safety.

We are, as a society and that is because of our changing attitude toward mental health and mental health laws.

We treat severely mentally ill people as if they are normal.

If we look at the actions of mass murderers there is a common thread or pattern among them. Our schools and society must observe them and make new efforts the way we have to with gun safety.

This latest tragic mass school shooting in Sandy Hook that killed these 20 beautiful little angels and six talented, heroic and loving educators has sent a message to us, to Washington and across the world.

Let us pray that the three branches of our government have received this message.

We must worry about Congress. Too many of its members appear to be in the pockets of gun manufacturers and the NRA and really are a detriment to the people who voted them in office.

After having to wait a week, to the day, to hear from the NRA leader, I couldn't bear it any longer -- I had to do something.

This is my first letter-to-the-editor in 83 years.

We as a society should feel ashamed -- and perhaps the guilt we feel will turn into action. We will never forget this tragic December of 2012. But we MUST remember that 30 people die every day, including young children, from guns.

NOW is the time for America to stand up against the special interest lobbies that only represent corporations who are only interested in the Yankee Dollar, and not the people and the 20 beautiful little angels and other innocent children who get killed by guns every day in America.